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Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Native Watercraft Singapore Kayak Fishing Competition 2014

It's not everyday that you get to go Kayak Fishing in Singapore. Perhaps that's the reason why many are still ambivalent when it comes to going Kayak Fishing. To make things worse, it's also not everytime that you go out Kayak Fishing in Singapore and get a good fish! But things change when you suddenly get invited to a closed door Kayak Fishing Competition in Singapore aptly titled Native Fishing League 2014. The very thought of participating in a League would stroke most fishing egos or even mildly excite the tightly cased ones. But yeah... suddenly the thought of launching our Kayaks at Pasir Ris Beach Watercross at 7am didn't seem like an impossible task. Well.... at least for those 3 weeks of the league.

Kayak fishing may seem glamorous but it really is a game of passion

The fishing league was held on every Saturday for 3 weeks and a mish mash of rules and bonus catches were stipulated by the organizers. Apparently, this was a beta league and plans to include the whole Kayak Fishing Community in Singapore will be in the works in 2015.

Well, plan or no plan.... Shawn and me were there to kick some ass! Our two man kayak fishing team went by the name of 'Lucky Strike'... the very Cigarette that Shawn favoured so much but he wouldn't admit he wanted the name because he always needs luck during the strike. Oops! 3 trips out was a challenging task since there were no try outs or perfect go-to solutions...

A novel scoring system was put in place with input from NUS!

During the first day, we tried out some spots I knew would work if we anchored long enough for the fish to pass by. We did well during that day and managed to get up to 3rd or 4th spot as some of the competitors managed to get nothing!

Yes it rained but we kept our spirits high

During the moving tide, fishes of all sizes and make came to visit us

Eventually I landed two of these beauties while Shawn only landed a table sized grouper

Second day was a tough affair and we split up to search for fish. It was a day of many flatheads though and although they were unglamourous fish, they packed a good weight which was good for the points system. We barely made the 2 fish per angler for weigh in though....

We caught many fish again but not all made it to the minimum size

As usual, I kept to my practice of catching more fishes on artificial - a tougher order than merely using live prawns like Shawn

Casting for groupers was something I loved

The third and final day was the highlight of Lucky Strike (ok I admit... by now, this post is highly biased towards myself and not my partner!). I had done trolling on boats before - light trolling in the shallows, deep trolling for Tuna... but light trolling done on a Kayak is a different story. You had to control the fish on the Kayak while ensuring the lines do not cross the propel drive of the Kayak.

I've been using the Native Mariner 10 Propel for quite some time now and that enabled me to troll properly for at least 20 minutes until I got quite possibly the trolling catch of my life. Why do I say troll properly? It's quite simple - I could reverse. You HAVE to reverse when you're snagged or trolling very near to water breakers or estruary mangrove roots. Period.

The first fish I landed on artificial was not really big but It was proof that I am slightly better than Shawn at artificials.

Yet another Grouper on Halco trolling

The second fish was also kind of boring but perhaps I was not slightly better but probably better than Shawn at artificials.

But the next fish was in another league of its own. This is no overstatement as the fish took the Halco Sorceror with such force that my Kayak turned. The fish was pretty heavy and took out line slowly... and all the while I was shouting to Shawn to come over! Shawn wasn't that convinced though (he was shocked later of course because he hasn't caught such a big fish on a Kayak before). After a good tug of war, I finally saw the fish and all 3 hooks of the Halco lure were deep in the fish's jaw. Up came a huge 8lbs Tiger Grouper (Laohu Ban) on the boga! I must confess that Shawn almost fell out of his Kayak when he saw this... but this was usual for me so I carried on with the usual photos.

Halco Sorceror Elton John Colour scores!

As usual, all shawn could do was gasp in envy

What could I say? I was envious of myself!

Shawn eventually landed a barramundi (it was luck) and although our fish were relatively heavy and worth much points, we were still worried - you can read Shawn's post and you can really tell that he was sore about me bringing back the Tiger!

But by God's grace, we managed to hang in 3rd place and maintain our aura of credibility and authencity as one of Singapore's top fishing couple.

Although we always complain alot and banter the hell out of ourselves, I must thank Shawn for introducing me to Kayak Fishing and I must say that he is a great, reliable team mate. I couldn't have done it without him. Without his catches, we still would be third but it would have been close!

What do you know? We actually won something!

The Final Score tally

SGYakAttack

16.391

Z Fighters

14.999

Lucky Strike

12.570

Emerge

10.441

FenOmMan

5.716

Sea Assassins

3.664

East Side Anglers

2.255

Orca

0.797

Team Liquid Moly

0.016

The A Team

0.011

For a more detailed daily report which I must say is very well done although it didn't state that I contributed more (to the catch) ... read famous Shawn Xue's blog